Site 1: Landscape Shaper

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still

Even among these rocks,

Our peace in His Will

Thomas Sterns Eliot: Ash-Wednesday

Welcome to the Land of Fires trail! You a standing at one of the most unique natural features on campus. At this site, you see a large outcropping of rocks just to the left of the School's main entrance. Much of the local granite features in the area are themselves pieces of evidence of a ever-changing planet. The Laurentide Ice Sheet once sat upon much of North America, including New England, in some areas the ice was a mile thick.

At this site, you are standing on granite bedrock, once exposed by the glacier. Today, primary and secondary succession can be seen as plants, even small trees, begin to grow on the exposed rock. The glacier that once stood here shaped many of the topographic features we see in the area around us - and reminds us that the planet is constantly in flux on a grand timescale!